Border Music by Robert James Waller

Most people don't run out the back door of a place called the Rainbow Bar in Dillon, Minnesota, with someone they don't even know, get in a pickup truck, drive all day, and end up without any clothes on in a motel room. But that's what Texas Jack Carmine did with Linda Lobo. It was the kind of thing Jack was famous for doing. The people who knew Texas Jack Carmine - such as songwriter Bobby McGregor and Jack's uncle Vaughn Rhomer back in Iowa - called him God's only freeborn soul, rider of the summer roads, traveler of the far places. Where he was headed with dark-haired, long-legged Linda was not just back to his one-horse Texas ranch. It was somewhere he had never been: face to face with his own heart and the wild, strange things that live there. Border Music is the story of Jack and Linda, of long, hot days on a high desert ranch, nights wild with loving beneath West Texas skies, and times when their relationship tears them both apart. It's about Vietnam and the Midwest, and Vaughn Rhomer, an old man who,tries in his own fumbling way to be free. It's about men and women who work hard and care intensely, about romance and the passion that you only find once...and you never stop wanting to find again.

Robert James Waller was born in Rockford, Iowa and attended the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa and the Indiana University School of Business. He was a professor of management and, later, dean of the business school at the University of Northern Iowa. He has written short stories and novels, but is best known as the author of The Bridges of Madison County, which was adapted into a movie starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. The book surpassed Gone with the Wind as the bestselling novel of all time. Waller received the Literary Lion Award from the New York Public Library.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Border Music

Kirkus Reviews

Henry David spent only two years staring into the waters of Walden Pond, Jack Carmine had spent a lifetime doing something like that and never once saw anything resembling a reflection looking back at him.'' Jack's had some tough times.

Publishers Weekly

he loved us in a special way and in doin' so taught us to think better of ourselves.'' A silly subplot concerns Jack's disillusioned uncle Vaughn Rhomer, a produce manager in a Iowa supermarket, who secretly nurtures his own romantic dreams and adventures, and finally realizes that Jack has ``sho...

Entertainment Weekly

The story of Texas Jack Carmine, a lovin', fightin', leavin' type of a man, and his lady, Linda Lobo, a classy kind of a dame, even if Texas Jack did meet her while she was dancin' in a topless bar (hey, she never got no breaks in this here life), and the brief time they make each other happy on...